


All of My Prayers Carry Your Name

by Telesilla



Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Baseball, Community: kink_bingo, Don't Have to Know Canon, First Kiss, M/M, Pre-Slash, Rituals, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Writing on the Body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telesilla/pseuds/Telesilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've done this before every game, home or away, since the beginning of August.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All of My Prayers Carry Your Name

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This takes place in a universe where magic works and so, in an attempt to keep the sport pure, any ball players with Talent have to have their magic nullified in one way or another before taking the field. For the "Writing on the Body" square of my Kink Bingo card.

_October 28, 2012_  
 _Game Four of the World Series_  
 _@ Detroit_  


The visitor's training room in Detroit is quiet and cool; this early, they have it all to themselves. Hunter sits down cross-legged on the floor and sets up his lap desk. Next, he takes his his palette out of his bag along with a small bottle of water and a black lump of ink. For several moments after that, he just sits and breathes, careful measured breaths that, as Brandon watches, calm Hunter down until he's still and focused.

Only then does he crumble off a piece of ink, set it in one of the wells of his palette and begin to mix it with water. He's using one of his reed pens to do the mixing; the brush he'll use later is sitting off to one side.

"Come to me, Thoth, O noble Ibis," he murmurs. "O god who loves Knum. O letter-writer of the Ennead...."

They've done this before every game, home or away, since the beginning of August; by now Brandon could recite the invocation along with Hunter, but he's not a Scribe. This is Hunter's magic, not his, and so he simply sits and waits, conscious of the wards--double circles, first fire, then water--he set up earlier. They'll hold as long as necessary; you don't grow up with opposing Affinities without learning balance.

His prayer over and his ink ready, Hunter looks up. "Ready?"

Brandon blinks a little. He's been staring at Hunter's hands, watching those long fingers as they mixed the ink, and he can feel his face go a little warm.

"Yeah," he says. Hunter holds up his right hand and Brandon presses his left to it. A thought, a twist of his mind and he's transferring control of the wards over to Hunter. They blur a little, but then they're steady again. It took Hunter a while to be able to accept them, but Brandon's not the only one who's learned new things over the past few months.

The wards don't do anything to block out the chill and Brandon tries not to shiver too much as he pulls his undershirt off. He always feels a little silly lying on the floor shirtless while wearing the rest of his uni, but it's easier this way. The carpet here is rough, but at least there is carpet. There hadn't been in St. Louis and the towel he put down hadn't kept him warm at all.

"Breathe slowly," Hunter murmurs as Brandon lies face down on the carpet, his head pillowed on his crossed arms. 

Brandon does his best, but it's not easy to keep breathing slowly when Hunter straddles his thighs and places his palette on Brandon's upper back. It always feels like it's heavy, far heavier than it looks, and Brandon knows that's mostly his mind, associating the palette with the full weight of Hunter's magic.

"Fire first today," Hunter says and Brandon nods carefully.

He can feel the shift as Hunter leans over, picks up his brush and then dips it in the ink. "I think of it as you putting your Fire in a small ball, like a pokemon ball," Hunter says. Most Scribes would have a set spell or incantation here, but not Hunter. The brush moves, painting the banishing symbols onto the small of Brandon's back. "Tucking it away so it won't distract you when you play, so it won't make you careless. Also so you won't set umpires on fire when you don't agree with a call."

Another symbol and then the next, all combining to damp down and then take away Brandon's Fire. The feeling is always so strange; he feels more and more unbalanced with each pass of the brush. "You still have the Fire," Hunter says. "I can't take it away. All I can do is help you put it in that pokemon ball. All I can do is render it dormant so you can play. I know it feels like it's gone, but it never really leaves you."

At the same time the last symbol is brushed into place, the fire ward vanishes. Brandon barely notices its passing, but he can feel the weight of half a sigil pressing against his back. He's colder now and he can feel the sudden distraction as his nipples go tight against the carpet. Damnit, he doesn't need that while his skin still tingling from the magic of Hunter's brush. He's aware of Hunter's weight across his thighs and even though the intensity of complete arousal is impossible for him right now, he's awash with unbalanced emotions.

"Hunter," he says and winces at how he sounds, hope and fear and something else, some emotion he doesn't want to acknowledge, twisting together in his voice.

"Shhhh...." Hunter presses his hand to the middle of Brandon's back, half way between the unfinished banishing sigil and his palette. "Your Water goes into a bowl," he says, and once again Brandon feels the brush move across his skin. "It runs out of your hands into a green and white bowl. Oh hey, look, there's a key chain at the bottom of the bowl." He pauses and Brandon wants to laugh; right now, as unbalanced as he is, he thinks Hunter's hilarious. "It's a first baseman's glove with our logo in the palm of it." The brush keeps moving.

"As all of your negative feelings, everything you're afraid of, everything that would keep you from playing cleanly, spills into the bowl, the glove floats to the top." Another brush stroke and the heavy rush of emotion begins to fade. "The last of the Water pours into it, all your hopes, all your joy is cupped in the glove." Hunter falls silent as he dips his brush. "I can't take that from you either, the Water is always there in you. All I can do is render it dormant so you can play without being over emotional or washing away bases as you go around them."

One more pass of the brush and suddenly, Brandon can think clearly. He's a little thirsty and he feels weirdly dusty, but he's in balance again. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the second ward melt away.

"Brandon Kyle Belt," Hunter says, all joking now gone from his voice. "I render your magic dormant. Neither Fire nor Water shall answer your command until such time as this sigil is removed. This Work is true, as I will attest before my God and before all who come to test you."

One last sweep of the brush, a circle Brandon can feel from start to finish and it's done. His magic is gone, but Hunter's words, the pictures he build up in Brandon's mind--the pokemon ball and the bowl and the glove--remain to comfort him. His magic isn't really gone; it can't be taken from him. All Hunter can do is suppress it so that Brandon takes the field with nothing to help him play but his skill as a ball player.

"Thank you," he says, waiting for Hunter to take his palette off Brandon's back.

"This," Hunter says. "This might be the last...."

"Don't," Brandon says sharply. All magic aside, he's still a ball player and he's still superstitious. This is the fourth game of the Series, not the last game.

"Fine, but I...." Hunter shifts a little and Brandon blinks. Is he feeling what he thinks he's feeling? "I need to tell you this now...doing this, Working on your back, drives me just a little wild."

"You...is that something that happens?" Brandon knows damn well he finds the whole ritual far more arousing than it should be, even with both his Fire and Water suppressed. But maybe all Hunter's feeling is that sense of almost physical satisfaction anyone feels when they've completed a complex Work.

"Only with you."

"Oh? Because...I mean, I guess you could tell that it does the same thing to me?"

"No. I'm Scribe, not an Empath."

"Well it does...it's like...almost like you shut everything down but it's still there. My Fire's gone, my Water's gone, but I still feel...you know...the whole Passion and Emotion resonance thing."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Brandon's skin gets a little tight; he'd be blushing if he could.

"For me it's like...." Hunter sighs and goes silent.

"Hey, you got me to talk about all the romance novel stuff that goes with my Talent."

"It's like I can see things under your skin...all the words I want to write on you." Hunter traces something on Brandon's shoulder blade with his finger.

"Spells? Sigils?"

"No, dumbass. Things like...how you have a gorgeous mouth and a great ass."

It's so like Hunter, all irreverent and out of the blue, that Brandon can't help laughing.

But then, when Hunter speaks again, his voice is very different. "Things like: _Could I see you with every glance, it would be better to me, than to eat or drink._ "

Just like that, Brandon's not laughing any more. Because maybe Hunter shut down Brandon's Talent, but that just means the emotions Brandon's feeling have nothing to do with Water and everything to do with Hunter. "I...wow."

"Not my words, sadly. I learned more than just spells when I studied ancient Egyptian."

"Still...." Brandon looks back over his shoulder. "No one's ever quoted poetry to me before, let alone wanted to write it on my skin."

"I can't write anything, not now, not with this ink. They'd See it when they tested you before the game."

"It's not like I can work Water magic on you."

"Yeah," Hunter says. He touches the tip of his finger to the small of Brandon's back and while Brandon knows Hunter's just testing the sigil to make sure it's dry, the touch is enough to make him gasp.

The moment Hunter removes his palette from Brandon's back, Brandon rolls over. Hunter's still straddling him and Brandon smiles up at him. "But after you remove the sigil...that's a whole different story." He wonders if anyone's ever done Water sex magic with Hunter or if it'll be new to him.

"After the game," Hunter says, bending down to kiss him.

The kiss is light, more promise than anything. When Hunter raises his head to look down at Brandon, Brandon throws superstition to the wind.

"After the game," he says. "After we win."

_-end-_

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: If you're just reading this casually--they did, in fact, win Game Four of the World Series in Detroit. Who knows, maybe Hunter scrubbed the sigil off Brandon's back with World Series special edition Mumm champagne.
> 
> The poem Hunter quotes at the end is a translation of an ancient Egyptian love poem that I found [here](http://themagentahornet.com/ancient-egyptian-love-poems.html). That's also where I found the title for the fic. Hunter's invocation to Thoth is the beginning of a traditional prayer that I found [here](http://z3.invisionfree.com/PACEdmonton/ar/t341.htm). I'm thinking he didn't recite the whole thing, undoubtedly modern Scribes have their own versions. Also, because Hunter follows the Egytpian Scribe's path, his palette looks like [this](http://www.eternalegypt.org/images/elements/406-8-EM-1-3491-_310x310.jpg).


End file.
